


West Coast Is The Best Coast

by flawedamythyst



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 06:38:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16213517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: Bucky didn't think the formation of the West Coast Avengers was going to have any impact on him, right up until he found out that Clint was going to be the leader.





	West Coast Is The Best Coast

There had been vague talk about it for a while, but it was only when both Ant-Man and Wasp said they’d become a permanent members of the Avengers that Steve and Tony decided to go ahead with splitting into two teams so that they had a presence on both coasts.

Bucky didn’t pay much attention to all the meetings and discussions about it. It wasn't as if anyone was going to ask him to go anywhere that Steve wasn't. They were too afraid that his mental health would unravel without a stabilising influence, or whatever.

He heard bits about it, of course. Scott and Hope were going to stay in New York, but Wanda and Pietro were definitely going to the West Coast. Rhodey was staying and Bruce was going; Bruce was staying and Rhodey was going; Bruce was retiring and Rhodey was going to go to whichever team needed his help most at any given moment. The headquarters were going to be San Francisco, the headquarters were going to be in Seattle, the headquarters were going to be a floating balloon that could move up and down the coast as needed.

Bucky wasn’t entirely sure he believed that one.

He knew that if he actually cared, he could ask Steve and get the truth rather than all these rumours, but he also knew that would mean Steve would use him as a sounding board for all the tricky decisions surrounding the move, and Bucky didn’t really want to spend a couple of hours making sympathetic noises and debating who worked best together, and which skill sets complimented each other, not when he could be slouched on a couch playing _Call of Duty_ with Clint.

Natasha came in, settling into an armchair with a thick folder and Bucky glanced over to see base blueprints. Okay, so the floating balloon thing was definitely wrong. That was vaguely disappointing.

“Are you going then?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’m just looking over the plans for Steve. We decided it would be best to have a SHIELD agent on both teams, so I’m staying here and Clint’s going.”

Bucky turned to stare at Clint. He’d never even considered that Clint might leave. Suddenly, this whole move felt less irrelevant to Bucky’s life.

Clint managed a shrug, still mostly concentrating on the screen. “Steve asked me to lead the new team,” he said, and he was trying to play it off as no big deal, but Bucky could hear the pride and awe that Steve had picked him in his voice.

And there went all Bucky’s half-made plans to try and get Clint to swap with Natasha. There was no way he could take an opportunity like that away from Clint, not when it might finally drum into his thick skull just how skilled he was at this superhero thing.

“That’s awesome,” said Bucky, forcing a grin onto his face, then nudging Clint with his knee. “Totally deserved.”

Clint gave him a beaming grin and, fuck, there went Bucky’s heart again, twisting in his chest just like it did every time Clint smiled at him.

It was hard enough living with knowing they’d only ever be just friends, how the hell was Bucky meant to cope with being on a different coast to him?

“I’m going to miss my gaming buddy, though,” he said, turning back to the game.

“You know you can play these things online, right?” said Clint. “We’ll get a couple of headsets and it’ll be pretty much the same.”

It wouldn’t be the same at all. Right now, Clint was pressed close enough for Bucky to feel his body heat and every little movement as he focused on the game. He could see the frown of concentration on Clint’s face, followed by the shit-eating grin when he managed to get one over Bucky. There was no way playing games with Clint would be the same without those things.

Fuck, nothing was going to be the same without Clint around.

****

After that, Bucky started paying more attention to the plans being made. Steve and Tony were both staying in New York and, as he’d expected, Bucky was staying with them along with Natasha, Scott and Hope. Clint was taking Wanda and Pietro, as well as Vision, and Rhodey whenever the Airforce could spare him.

Which left Bruce and Sam to be argued over. Steve, of course, wanted Sam to stay, arguing that most of the other fliers were going with Clint, although Bucky had a feeling it was more to do with him not wanting Sam on the other side of the country. Bucky was pretty secure in his position as Steve’s best friend, but Steve was close to Sam in completely different ways.

Ways that Bucky had a feeling were similar to how close he was to Clint.

Tony, on the other hand, wanted Bruce to stay because he claimed keeping him where he was settled would make controlling the Hulk easier, not to mention that Avengers Tower already had a Hulk-proof room and building another on the west coast would be expensive.

Frankly, the whole base sounded expensive, but he figured Tony just didn’t want to lose his science buddy.

After the sixth shouting match between Steve and Tony that ended with them both storming out of the kitchen, Bucky nudged Clint’s boot with his foot. “Who do you want on your team?”

Clint shrugged. “Steve has a point that I’ve already got a fair few fliers, but…” he hesitated and then dropped his voice. “The Hulk is something of a liability. Cap’s given me a big responsibility, I don’t want to ruin it by accidentally unleashing a rage monster on downtown LA.”

“You won’t,” said Bucky with all the confidence Clint didn’t seem to have in himself. “You’re going to be awesome at this. Steve wouldn’t have picked you if you weren’t.”

Clint shrugged and ducked his head to hide a pink-cheeked smile. “Thanks.”

God, Bucky could think of all too many ways that he’d love to put that smile on Clint’s face. He forced himself to look away and concentrate on the conversation instead. There was always plenty of time to get lost in daydreams about Clint, but soon enough he wasn’t going to be around to actually talk to. Bucky didn’t want to miss out on any of it, if he could help it.

“The base is going to be in LA?” asked Bucky. “I thought you hated LA.”

Clint shrugged. “It’s not so bad, and it makes the most sense.” He grinned. “Besides, I can’t think of anywhere better if we do have an accidental Hulk moment.”

Bucky snorted. “You mean, you’re going to cause one just to take the place out.”

Clint just waggled his eyebrows, still grinning widely enough to make Bucky’s heart clench.

Clintleft not long after that for another of the endless meetings about various aspects of the move. Bucky stayed slumped in the kitchen, staring at his empty coffee mug and thinking the whole thing over.

When Bruce came in to make tea, he gave Bucky a nod. Bucky looked up at him with a frown. “Anyone actually asked you if you want to go or stay?”

Bruce blinked, then did the self-deprecating half-shrug thing he always did when people looked for his opinion on something outside of a science thing. “Yeah, both Tony and Steve, but I told them I didn’t mind. Wherever they want to put me is fine.”

Bucky stared at him for a bit longer. “But really you want to stay,” he realised.

Bruce turned back to hs tea. “Yeah,” he said, tiredly. “I like it here. And Tony’s annoying, but he’s also incredible to work with.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow, because who the hell thought he was going to stroke Tony’s ego?

“But Sam’s got family here,” said Bruce, “and we can talk about how great quinjets are all we want, he’s not going to be seeing them as much if he’s in LA. I can still work with Tony remotely.”

Bucky nodded to himself and thought about Sam’s response when he’d asked him the same thing, which had essentially been ‘I want to stay but I go where I’m deployed’.

“Right,” he said quietly to himself, and went up to the roof. He always found it easier to make a decision when he was up high and looking out at the city.

The sun was dipping below the skyline when he made it back inside. He knocked on the door of Clint’s room and he answered in sweatpants and a hoodie, so Bucky figured he was done with meetings for the day.

“Want to have dinner?” he asked. “I found a pizza place I think you’ll like.”

Clint grinned. “Baby, you had me at pizza,” he said. “I mean, have you ever found a pizza place I wouldn’t like?”

Bucky shrugged. “This place is pretty special.”

****

Clint’s eyes lit up with pure joy when he took his first bite. “Holy shit, this is the best pizza I’ve had in ages. How the hell did you even find this place?”

Bucky had asked JARVIS to run a search for the best pizza restaurant in Manhattan, using all the reviews he could find and then cross-referencing them with Clint’s preferences. That had been six months ago, when he’d thought he might be able to find the courage to ask the guy out. He hadn’t done anything with the information since then.

“Guess I read about it somewhere,” he said, taking a bite of his own pizza. “Look, Clint. I spoke to Bruce and Sam about how they feel about going to LA.”

Clint let out a sigh. “Yeah, I know. They both want to stay. Guess no one wants to be on the second string team being led by a guy trying out leadership for the first time.”

He looked so crestfallen that Bucky couldn’t stop himself from saying, “I do,” even though he hadn’t meant to start with that at all.

The slice of pizza Clint had been lifting towards his mouth froze in mid-air. “You what? You’d seriously leave Steve, and New York, to come hang out in fucking LA with the losers?”

“You’re not losers,” said Bucky. “And, yeah. I might. I’ve been thinking about it. It would sort things out with Tony and Steve fighting over who gets to keep his best friend all the time.”

Clint snorted. “By making Steve lose his super-duper BFF of all BFFs,” he said. “Yeah, that’ll go down well.”

“It’d be my decision,” said Bucky, and Clint nodded, because they both knew that any time Bucky framed something as being his choice, Steve gave in completely on it. The whole team were all pretty careful around letting Bucky have his autonomy these days, which he really appreciated in a way that he’d never be able to express. “I haven’t decided yet,” he added. “Just, I wanted to talk to you about it.”

“You’re asking if I’d want you on my team?” asked Clint. “Hell yes, always. You haveta know that. Plus it would make kicking your ass at _Call of Duty_ easier.”

“Does that mean you’ll actually manage it one of these days?” asked Bucky. “Because it seems like mostly I’m kicking your ass.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “Your brain’s still addled if you think that,” he said. “But, seriously, it would be great if you wanted to come. You can even be my second-in-command, if you want.” A frown flickered over his face. “Or do you want to be leader? That might make more sense, you’ve got more experience than me.”

He did his best to make that seem like no big deal, but Bucky could see him wilting at the thought that he was about to lose his promotion. Bucky could see resignation as well, as if he’d been expecting this not to work out.

“Oh no,” he said, kicking at Clint’s foot. “No way, are you kidding? No way I want the nightmare and paperwork of being leader. I wouldn’t be any good at it anyway, I’m a sergeant through-and-through.”

Clint perked back up. “Okay, then you can be my sergeant,” he said. A smirk spread out over his face. “Okay, that sounded dirtier than I meant.” He winked at Bucky. “You can be _my_ sergeant,” he repeated, in a over-the-top sleazy way.

“Idiot,” said Bucky, then hesitated. This was why he’d brought Clint out for dinner before he actually made this decision, after all. “Although, that’s. Uh.” He stalled and then made a face at his own ineloquence. “Look, that’s kinda the thing. Why I haven’t completely decided to come yet.”

Clint winced and shrunk in on himself, which was not the reaction Bucky had been expecting, at least not when he hadn’t even explained yet. “Uh, yeah,” he mumbled to his pizza. “Sorry, I can rein it in, I swear, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“Rein what in?” asked Bucky.

“The flirting,” said Clint. “I just get carried away, sorry, I’ll stop if you come to LA, you don’t need to worry about sexual harassment or whatever.”

Bucky stared at him in shock for long enough for Clint to twitch uncomfortably and fold even tighter into himself, which was quite a feat for someone with shoulders like his.

“That’s not what I want at all,” said Bucky, eventually. “It’s- Fuck. Look, Clint, this is all messed up wrong, I shouldn’t be mixing the two things up like this, but I guess I just left it too late to find the courage at a better time.” He took a deep breath, fixed the idea that Clint had been flirting with him in the front of his mind, and forced himself to say, “I like you. A lot. And I don’t want to miss out on maybe having something with you just because you’re in LA, but I don’t want to be creeping on the teamleader either, or-”

“Wait,” said Clint, staring at him. “You _like_ me? For real?”

Bucky managed a shrug. “Yeah, I guess you won me over with your bruises and your purple sweatpants.” 

“Oh,” said Clint, sounding stunned. “Then, I guess- I mean. We should date. This can be a date, right? We’re in a restaurant, that’s basically it.”

It was Bucky’s turn to be stunned. “You- Seriously? Just like that?”

“Hell yes, just like that,” said Clint, reaching out to touch Bucky’s hand with hesitant fingers, then grasping it a moment later with a surge of courage. “Or, not really, considering I’ve been wanting to be on a date with you for months now.”

That was a lot to take in. Bucky grasped at Clint’s hand with both of his as he did so, then took a deep breath. “Okay, well, I guess that decides it, then. I’ll come be your sergeant in LA.”

A beaming grin broke out over Clint’s face. “Oh man, that’s so much better than having Sam or Bruce along. Uh, don’t tell them I said that, I love them both but not like I love you.” A second later he winced and tried to pull his hand away. “Okay, that came out wrong, pretend I didn’t say that.”

Bucky tightened his grip to keep hold of Clint’s hand, a pure flow of happiness rushing through him and lightening the dark feeling of dread that had been creeping over him ever since he’d found out Clint was leaving. “Nah, I think I’m gonna want to remember that one.”

Clint studied him for a moment, then gave a lopsided grin at whatever he found. “Sure, okay. And next time I’m wearing my purple sweatpants I’ll remember that you’ve got a thing for them.” Her glanced down at the remains of his pizza, then back up at Bucky. “In fact, how about we go back to the Tower and I model them for you?”

“Think I’d rather see you wearing nothing at all,” said Bucky, already glancing around to signal the waitress for the check.

****

It took another six months to get the LA base fully set up and move the new team out there. Bucky walked in hand-in-hand with Clint, followed by the others and looked around at the sparkling new fixtures and equipment. He wondered how long it would take them to trash it all.

“Wow,” said Clint, looking around. “This is shinier than the Tower. We totally have the best base. Those East Coast Avengers can suck it.”

“And the rivalry starts,” said Wanda with a suppressed sigh.

Bucky squeezed Clint’s hand. “What do you want to do first, boss?”

Clint blinked at him, then beamed. “I want to check out our room and make sure Tony made it as purple as I told him to, and then I want to order pizza.”

“Oh, we definitely got on the best team,” said Pietro.

“And then we’re working out a training schedule,” added Clint. “We need to make sure we’re at the top of our game, so that no one thinks we’re the poor cousins. But first, pizza.”

“Sounds good,” said Bucky. “West coast is the best coast, right?”

After all, it was the one with Clint on it. What else did he need?


End file.
